Black Magus

With the unconfirmed revelation of Amun's station as the God of Gods looming over my head, I found it difficult to do my duty as the Abbot dictated. Not to say Amun needed any training to use his newfound ki, I had him train to walk on water before he opened his last Ki Pond, after all, he'd long since developed the habit of reading Ki at increasingly further distances. To top it off, he was nearing the end of The Walk. We were returning to the Halls once he reached the 9th Step by forming his final Pond of Necrotic Ki. I knew not how he would accomplish that, other than meditating among the dead. I was certain, however, that it did not involve training and playing games with the human children, teleporting his cohort of animals elsewhere, or pampering his celestial wolves and owls. Creatures that growled and screeched whenever I or High Matron Etyl crept close.

It had been three days since we left the walled city of Charrlagith. Three days of him coddling his companions. Three days of those beasts allowing me to train their master. Three days of militant humans stalking him from afar, watching his every move, calling for reinforcements, and organizing their numbers around the ever-shifting terrain.

High Matron Etyl, a predator of the opportune, dragged me into her ploy the night they began organizing. Using a mixed bag of Amun's amiability and her vast repertoire of divine and arcane spells, the High Matron cast a web of uncertainty around the humans, then stood in wait while her fear-inducing toxins drizzled down the strands. It went without saying, though. The Child of the Nox accomplished that on his own. And, not to mention, I was confident that the Elven Devil knew her ploy. Made evident by the fact that the girls could be seen sneaking through the resting human camps alongside us, stealing everything from maps and weapons to boots and rations. Harmless but effective trickery, meant to build skills in stealth more than anything.

Such actions have since then ceased. Halted by the paranoia of anticipation once the city of Ullikis loomed into clear view. When it did, the theft, trickery, and manipulations ceased on all accounts. Even the beasts allowed us to approach their master freely, and the girls returned to their strange fox.

The High Matron inquired of the plan the moment she faced him but Amun only smiled, saying his destination was some 350 kilometers to the coast. Alrafethinn was just beyond this city. Followed by Dretnat, and finally, the capital of both Alerus County and the human-governed Shujen Kingdoms, Bemarra. His destination was only a few kilometers past that, beneath the ice of Shujen Bay.

<<"And what of the humans?">> The High Matron asked, to which Amun dismissively shrugged.

<<"You are enjoying this, are you not?">> She smiled cruelly.

<<"Their decision to attack on sight is no fault of mine.">> Amun shrugged again. <<"More meat for the maw, as they say.">>

<<"No. You are drow. And they are warmongering humans.">>

That marked the end of any conversations between us and him for what would amount to days. Amun and the fox-thing took point throughout the journey, allowing me and the High Matron to take up positions behind him, flanked by the wolves. He hardly even glanced at the city of Ullikis, paying no mind to the 97,000 inhabitants protected by a mere band of hardened stone and a regiment of nearly 7,000 humans who hoped the dangerous figure decided against making camp nearby.

Much to their relief and more to the High Matron's dismay, Amun did not. He continued walking north. Pausing only to meditate for four hours each day before continuing, his dogs ever close, his owls perched nearby, always; the strange fox forever lurking close by his side, the soldiers persistently trailing behind me and the High Matron, doing our best to remain hidden throughout the hated day and the blissful night.

The same scene played out in the much less-populated city of Alrafethinn. Only with much more intrigue. The cavalry rode out to warn and prepare the paltry force of 800 while the regiment behind Amun split apart for a flanking maneuver. Within the span of half a day, he was surrounded on three sides, with the eastern flank being the weakest. An admirable effort, but the city of 12,000 was assumed to be in grave danger still. Yet, Amun continued onward without as much as a look their way. And, as before, the armies followed close behind. Armies that eventually had to stop and make camp in the webs of a demonic spider.

The long walks led by Amun lasted throughout the day and most of the night at an unwavering pace, leaving their ranks fatigued. The High Matron's webs and my illusions left them restless and wary. The trickery of Amun's girls filled their mornings with unease, confusion, and frustration as provisions and personal items were found missing or, better yet, in places they should not have been.

It seemed either Amun or the girls were of the same mind as the High Matron, for the tactics changed shortly after Dretnat loomed over the hills. The girls left them alone, returning to their fox. Meanwhile, I Astral Projected, and the High Matron simply turned invisible. We both drifted through the camp. Listening purely for the sake of amusement.

"Agh!" one of the weary ones threw a horn of ale into a tree. "This is fuckin' stupid! Chasin' some fuckin' kids around the wilds!"

"That ain't no kid." An older, gray, and grizzled human growled. A peasant-turned-fighter long ago, it seemed, or a wanderer. It was hard to tell, with them all looking the same. Filthy and covered in steel scraps and rags. "That's a fuckin' undead monster!" The brute so eloquently continued. "He's killed thousands. Three hundred soldiers in Dryndrabethei. Gone. Over six hundred in Lainoara. Dead. Almost two thousand from Charrlagith. Decimated. Now, all three cities belong to the living dead."

"How the fuck you know then, if they're all dead?" The first one leaned forward, squinting hard.

"Refugees. They say he killed them all with his bare hands. Used his own broken limbs like fuckin' weapons."

"Bullshite!" Another one spat. "Ain't no darkie monk killin' thousands with his hands. Much less with his fuckin' guts hangin' out. One cut an' they run for the caves!"

I winced at the insult, but another brute interjected. "That's cause he ain't drow! That's a half-elf with dark skin and white hair! Not the same! You've seen his chest, haven't you?"

"Still, ain't no half-elf kid killin' that many soldiers." The first one retorted.

"It's those wolves, I bet. They ain't natural."

"No fuckin' shite, they ain't natural! They're fuckin' glowing!"

It was much the same throughout the sleepless camp. The next night, however, was a different story. By dusk, Amun came upon the outer farms of Dretnat. With a native force of 2,400 troops, they were able to bolster the ranks of the trailing army while a sole negotiator trotted out on horseback to intercept the interloper.

"Hail! Unarmed messenger inbound!" He shouted, one hand raised high. Surprisingly, Amun stopped and silently watched his horse as the human dismounted and turned to meet the eyes of the strange elf. "W-what." He backpedaled once and swallowed hard, gaining his strength a little. "What are your intentions in heading towards our capital?"

"I am not heading towards your capital." Amun lazily blinked. "My destination lies beyond your city."

"There is not but ice and water beyond Bemarra."

Yes." Amun nodded calmly. "Shujen Bay is my destination."

The man squinted silently for a few moments, looking Amun's emaciated frame up and down while intense focus was concentrated on the next words to pour from his mouth. "Even so. Your actions cannot be excused. You've trespassed the town of Dryndrabethei and killed hundreds of our brothers."

"I trespassed after being attacked while passing the city of Dryndrabethei. Only then did I kill hundreds of your brothers." Amun corrected him with a cold, unchanging tone. "If you wish to punish me because of that, summon me to a trial. If you wish to kill me, you are welcome to try. I must ask, however, do you speak for those behind you? Do you speak for those beside you? Do you speak for King Horus and Queen Frahna?

"Are you the one who will dig their graves?" Amun stepped forward and the man paled in turn, facing his widened eyes to the thousands of burdensome souls waiting in the distance before he crumpled beneath their combined weight.

By the time he looked back, Amun had disappeared into the cold bog behind him, yet he remained for nearly an hour before returning to his ranks. They must have believed him, for they watched Amun from afar just as they had done before, only with a little more distance placed between them and us. Moreover, the trickery of his girls ceased entirely, and High Matron Etyl's displeasure pulled her away from any more webs of deceit. However, she refrained from any outbursts until we passed the expansive city-state of Bemarra and their gathered army.

<<"You are a naive child.">> That was it. One sentence of pure disdain. No slaps or beatings to punctuate her point. Only words. It was... uncanny.

Amun, of course, ignored her entirely and instead gazed upon the city from afar. It was a magnificent place. By human standards. A wall of glistening blue stone contoured around the river, forming a crescent-shaped block of glimmering stone so the nobles could look down on the complex of buildings and their fields of crops with as little effort as possible. The keeps and castles lining the walls were always a prime target for prospective raids, but with an estimated population of 200,000, it was something rarely pursued. After all, the Queen Demon Spider had her eyes on different prey; and apparently, Amun did as well.

He kept his pace over the semi-frozen waters of Shujen Bay, formed from the aftermath of Crater Lake's formation. An irony in itself, for it was his ancestor, the half-high-elven Mad Void Monk, who formed the lake. It was a cataclysmic event. That primordial void destroyed everything between here and the Bodhi Tree's main campus. The Southern Peninsula sank to the elevations of today, leaving a sheer cliff that stretched from the Mazi Council's shores in the far east to the edge of our Knighilian neighbors to the west, decimating the Nevstan Principality and Shujen in the process. Since then, erosion had reduced the still-towering cliffside to a ridge that averaged thirty meters higher in elevation than the marshes below. Naturally, those wetlands transitioned to open waters that, for the most part, remained clear and choppy, with the seas freezing over once every four years or so. This time, though, the winter seemed unnatural, for the cold was biting and the ice was unbroken for leagues.

We were nearly across the Bay by the time I sensed it. The unnatural chill in the air was chased by a strong malevolent force radiating from our destination. The girls soon jumped out of the frigid waters with no signs of them being cold as they claimed to have hit a wall of ice. Then, we felt the pang of death just before the hardened crunch of frozen bone rattled beneath our boots, halting us in place for but a moment. Even the High Matron was silent. More than that, she grew uneasy once a blue-green flame pierced the dense fog, illuminating a threshold of crystalline ice leading down into the darkness.

a monster lair.

We entered behind Amun, stepping trepidatiously down the slick stairs, shivering with each pass of the arcane flames. Step by echoing step, I followed, feeling the cold sense of death work its way into my bones until we were faced with a similar threshold at the bottom. Inside was an atrium of white marble, ice, and gold; hexagonal in shape and immense in volume. A lair so elaborate as to make me believe a white dragon convinced a drow to furnish its hole. Winter moss and icy plants bloomed throughout a floor of frozen dirt, tainting the overbearing stench of death with an earthly aroma. Gold, trinkets, weapons, and baubles were strewn about the place in places that seemed random, at a glance, but as I moved, I found my eyes drawn not to various pieces around the room but to the denizens of this lair.

Corpses frozen in time went about their eternally unchanging routines in every corner of the space. Their faces were permanently curled in incensed visages. Some were frozen beneath blocks of solid ice, and many more had the blackened scars of frostbite throughout their bodies, but even their statures seemed peaceful. They sat atop pillows of frost, gesturing as if they had been in mid-discussion or prayer or… meditation.

Two rows of pillars ran the length of the room and rose to the glass-like ceiling, boasting tapestries and carvings depicting battles with mighty warriors of shadow pitted against the likes of dark dwarves. Then they shifted to landless expanses filled with stars and round realms filled with magnificent beasts and mighty undead. At the end of the room, of course, was a throne. Atop which sat the most brilliant skeleton I had ever seen, poised like a monk in a deep meditative state. The bones were plated, somehow, in adamantine and then inlaid with gold in the same way as the Head and the Fox, only going further to include the edge of the nose, fill the cracks of its skull, and form cloud-like swirls for eyebrows. Like Amun, however, it had the visage of a great tree inlaid onto its hinged ribs.

With my keen eyes, I managed to notice the hinges on its skull before Amun captured my attention by reaching down into his shadow, producing a crown of gold and blue-green glowing mithral that he placed atop the robe skeleton's head without a word.

The crown pulsed the moment it touched the creature, releasing a wave of necrotic energy that cascaded down the corpse to pour from the eye sockets as necrotic fire, burning blackened muscle and paled flesh onto the bone as if he were immolated in reverse. Black hair soon plumed around the head, obscuring the face while the skin continued to burn into existence; down the neck, across the torso, to both arms, and down to the feet until a cold and malice-fueled young man sat before us, boring his silver eyes into High Matron Etyl's soul.

<<"What is this?">> She gasped.

<<"This is Zaraxus.">> Amun laughed through his nose, much to the High Matron's ire. <<"He was my first kill, initially raised as a draugr. For a while now, he's been a Death Jarl without a crown. Now that he has one, it's time for you to claim your kingdom, right?">>

"Yes, my liege." The evolved draugr, the Death Jarl, Zaraxus, hissed with glee.

As did the High Matron.